This invention generally relates to techniques for providing information to callers in a telephone system. More particularly, the present invention provides a set of innovations that enable an advertiser supported service to offer callers access to information that previously could generally be accessed via proprietary and expensive networks controlled by telecom monopolists and incumbents. The method and system can be applied to other applications as well.
In previous eras, information about business and residential telephone numbers could typically be accessed through print directories and government records. Approximately four decades ago, standardized telephone information systems emerged. Designed around common access codes (e.g., 411) such systems enabled callers to look up business and residential telephone numbers for free. Up until recently, such systems were available to consumer and business customers at no charge or a nominal charge. In recent years, the prices began to increase. Today, the average pricing on landline US 411 calls is over $0.80 for local look-ups and $1.50 for national queries. Cellular 411 calls are generally at least $1.25.
Meanwhile, in recent years, advances in the marketing discipline and rapid strides in technology have empowered advertisers to identify and cater to consumer as well as business customers based on a host of different identifying criteria. As a result, ad messages geared to the identified target market(s) result in a more productive use of advertising resources than would otherwise occur. Embodiments of the present invention provide a methodology for marketers to reduce expenditures on “wasteful advertising”, i.e., advertising not received by the advertiser's aimed-for target market(s). Embodiments of the present invention optimize advertising efficiency by a system of delineating current/prospective customers (through opt-in telephone calls) and matching these particular callers to advertising messages transmitted through free information services, by means of a toll free telephone number, including but not limited to directory assistance. Exposure and responsiveness to each ad are recorded in real time, thereby providing the advertiser with accurate and timely measurement and feedback. In capturing audience receptivity to the relayed ad, the system also enables the advertiser to evaluate the appeal of the message and, importantly, to engage in immediate follow-up on a contact initiated by the customer. Not only is the advertiser facilitated in evaluating the efficacy of the ad but the resultant insights can be utilized in assessing the validity of the advertiser's data base of customer identifiers. Notably, advertiser risk is minimized in that the system can incorporate a Pay for Performance feature designed around customers affirmatively indicating a desire to connect to a given advertiser.
Marketers today have an array of sophisticated methodologies capturing a host of different variables to more accurately identify characteristics profiling target customers. Where the market is comprised of consumers, the profiling of customers encompasses demographics, psychographics, purchasing preferences and buying behaviors. For business customers, the profiling includes variables such as type of business, number of employees, sales size, dollar volume of purchases, number of years in operation and other characteristics representative of the target market sought by the marketer. For both consumer and business categories of customers, profiling permits listing of individual identities and facilitates direct marketing to those particular individuals/households or businesses. Marketing strategies customized for these profiled entities allow for effective one-to-one marketing, whether it be B2C (i.e., business-to-consumer) or B2B (i.e., business-to-business). Such customer identification also permits prioritization of customers for direct marketing thereby enhancing the productivity of marketing expenditures. Furthermore, pioneering statistical work being done today in the field of marketing involves predictive models that assign cluster-profiles at the household level. Not aimed at individuals per se, these models enable firms to classify households according to psychographic and geo-demographic variables as well as prior purchase patterns. The arsenal of large companies in researching and maintaining databases of customers, past, current, and prospective, necessitates a very substantial allocation of resources. Given that it is generally desirable to mine such data effectively, it is compelling that the advertising medium's audience is congruent with the advertiser's targeting of customers to the greatest extent possible.
The use of the telephone to transmit advertising messages is widespread especially as it relates to telemarketing, or to businesses advertising to customers while “on hold” or to customers seeking a particular product or service by means of a toll free number.
Whereas, telephone systems have been extensively used for telemarketing, the recent “Do Not Call Registry” will severely curb the use of this advertising medium. Already some 64 million telephone numbers have been listed on the registry and marketers who use the telephone as a marketing tool need new approaches to contact potential customers. The directory assistance medium wherein consumers/businesses respond to the advertiser's message by choosing to opt-in for contact with the advertiser represents a new communication strategy.
Customer fatigue with advertising in traditional media, combined with the clutter of mass media continues to diminish the effectiveness of such media.
There thus is a need in the art for improved business category search within telephone directory assistance.